This paper provides new information, not available from other sources, on the characteristics ofthe innovation process in Europe, and on the economic use and value of European patents. Ourdata are drawn from a survey (PatVal-EU, or PatVal for short) of 9,017 patents granted by theEuropean Patent...

This paper analyzes firms’ choices regarding the geographic scope of patentprotection within the European patent system. We develop an econometric modelat the patent level to quantify the impact of office fees and translation costs onfirms’ decision to validate a patent in a particular...

Although labor mobility has been recognized as a key mechanism to transfer tacit knowledge,prior research on inventors has so far neglected to address the question of the consequence ofa move on inventive performance. This paper improves on the current R&D literature bypresenting a...

This paper analyzes the causality between inventor productivity and inventor mobility. Theresults show that the level of education has no influence on inventor productivity. Making useof external sources of knowledge, on the contrary, has a significant effect on productivity.Finally, firm size...

This paper seeks to understand the intriguing but only sparsely explored phenomenon of “leisure timeinvention,” where the main underlying idea for the new product or process occurs when the inventor isaway from the workplace. We add to previous research by focussing on the inventive...

This paper analyzes firms' choices regarding the geographic scope of patent protection within the European patent system. We develop an econometric model at the patent level to quantify the impact of office fees and translation costs on firms' decision to validate a patent in a particular...

Based on an established theoretical framework of the drivers of inventive performance, the so-called KSAO (Knowledge, Skills, Abilities, and Other) factors, this paper seeks to explain empirically the performance of inventors throughout their careers. We combine survey information spanning the...

We study the impact of social ties on the migration of inventors from East to West Germany, using the fall of the Iron Curtain and German reunification as a natural experiment. We identify East German inventors via their patenting track records prior to 1990 and their social security records in...

Based on a survey of the inventors of 9,017 European patented inventions, this paper provides new information about the characteristics of European inventors, the sources of their knowledge, the importance of formal and informal collaborations, the motivations to invent, and the actual use and...

Germany is one of few countries in which the monetary compensation for inventors is not only determined by negotiations between employer and employee-inventor, but also by relatively precise legal provisions. In this paper, we describe the characteristics of the German Employees’ Inventions...